Lighting technologies used in electrical and electronic devices are employed to achieve practical and/or esthetic effects. There are many types of lighting technologies. A conventional type of lighting technology that is used in electrical and electronic devices is called “backlighting.”
Typically, backlighting involves the use of a backlight to illuminate objects from behind. Backlights are commonly used in LCD devices. In such devices, backlights can be used to illuminate a display panel of an LCD device from either the side or the back. In devices where the display panel is illuminated from the back, the backlight is usually the backmost layer.
In some cases, conventional lighting technologies (including backlighting technologies) may not provide illumination that is of sufficiently high quality. For example, the illumination that is provided may not be sufficiently bright and/or uniform and can render it difficult to view illuminated objects from certain angles (i.e., the illumination has poor directionality). Some of the challenges to providing high quality illumination can be due to engineering design constraints related to size, power and cost.
It is in this context in which the present embodiments arise.